Nothing Happening...And Then

A group of us who attend meetings with John de Ruiter got together to see how we might write about the essence of John's teachings.   John is a spiritual teacher in Edmonton, Canada who had a profound awakening when he was 17 years old.  And he has continually deepened in his awakening for the last 35 years. Attempting to capture who he is could be a worthy challenge.


We realized a good place to begin was to relate to what is deepest within.  That may be our best bet to find within what we know John to be.  From that place we could see what arose.  Would writing arise?  We didn't know.  


The phrase "Nothing Happening," emerged from our discussions and seemed to characterize a good starting place to settle into.  So a few days later, I sat at my computer, closed my eyes, became quiet within, and let the following express:


So writing from “nothing happening.”  What is that, where is that space?  When everything within settles, and there is quiet, deep quiet, a quiet space filled with nothing.  And then the quiet fills itself with a hum, a pulsing hum.   Quiet filled with sound.  


Sitting in my big chair at home, looking out the window, the longer the silence, the louder the pulsing hum grows. What arises is nothing or a simple clarity.  Simple clarity speaks no loud sounds, yet it seems it can slowly melt emotions and old patterns of habit. 


In meetings with John de Ruiter, this silent nothing fills the space with thick energy. Resonating with John’s profound stillness, settling in the quiet, dropping deeper, my mind stops.  


Dropping even deeper, an urge arises to catch hold of something familiar, attempting to prevent completely melting and dissolving away.  Relax, no need to catch hold, just let melting occur.  And then thick nothing drops into greater fineness.  Finer and finer becoming a glimpse of, what is it?   Is it a sacred golden pulsing?


Staying, not moving, the golden threads become light, then colored light forms, geometrical and exquisite in form, moving and reforming into new shapes and colors.  The gold turning into white light, morphing into electric blues, violets and greens and then moving further into nothing-but-blackness. 


Now a dog barks shrill sounds like the cry of a hurt child.  Its pain touches something deeper than usual within.  Is it possible to directly enter the sacred through pain?


The phone rings.  Standing up, moving, the surface takes form and what was deeper dissolves.  And I ask, “What just happened?  Did anything? Nothing happened.  Nothing Happening...and Then."